Subject: [permaculture] Solar chimney to be built in Oz - large-scale renewable energysolution for the future
Date: Sun, 02 Mar 2003 02:30:33 -0800
Sunday, 5 January, 2003, 03:20 GMT
Australia plans world's tallest tower
An Australian power company is planning to build the world's tallest
structure - a solar tower - in the middle of the outback.
The project is part of a global campaign to encourage the use of more
renewable energy.
Enviromission says the tower, at a proposed height of 1,000 metres (3,300 ft), will be more than twice the size of the world's current
tallest freestanding building, the Canadian National Tower in Toronto.
The one billion Australian dollar (US $0.56 bn) project is being backed by the Australian Government, and is expected to be completed in
2006 in the remote Buronga district in New South Wales.
If successful, the structure could provide enough electricity for 200,000 homes. It will save more than 700,000 tonnes of greenhouse gases
which may otherwise have been emitted by coal- or oil-fired power stations.
Enviromission chief executive officer Roger Davey told Reuters news agency: "Initially people told me 'you're a dreamer', there's no way
anything that high can be built, there's no way it can work".
"But now we have got to the point where it's not if it can be built, but when it
can be built."
Huge monolith
The proposed structure will have a width similar in size to a football field and will stand in the centre of a huge glass roof spanning 7km
(4.3 miles).
The sun will heat the air under the glass roof, and as it rises an updraft will be created in the tower, allowing air to be sucked through
32 turbines.
The turbines will then spin, generating power 24 hours a day.
The tower was developed by German structural engineers Schlaich Bergerman, who built a 200-metre-high demonstration power plant in
Manzanares, Spain, in 1982.
The tower proposal has received the support of the Australian and New South Wales governments, which have defined it as a project of
national significance.
The authorities plan to fit the tower with high intensity obstacle lights to
prevent aircraft from crashing into it.